Joe Maring / Android Authority
If there’s one aspect of the Google Pixel 10 that deserves a spotlight, it’s the phone’s new camera system. Although it seemed too good to be true in leaks, Google really did ship the base model Pixel 10 with three rear cameras — including primary, ultrawide, and telephoto sensors.
That telephoto camera is the star of the show. Ever since the Pixel 6 series, Google’s base model Pixels have been limited to primary and ultrawide cameras; if you wanted a third telephoto camera, you had to buy a Pro model. But that’s not the case for the Pixel 10.
I’ve spent the last couple of days using the Pixel 10’s new telephoto camera, both on its own and comparing it to the zoom capabilities of the Pixel 9. Simply put, having a dedicated telephoto camera on the Pixel 10 is a truly substantial upgrade — in more ways than one.
What do you think of our Pixel 10 telephoto camera samples? 4 votes They look great! Adding a telephoto camera was a great decision. 50 % They're fine, but I was expecting better. 25 % I'm not impressed at all. 25 % Other (let us know in the comments). 0 %
Here’s what the Pixel 10’s telephoto camera is capable of
Joe Maring / Android Authority
The Pixel 10’s telephoto camera is a 5x optical zoom sensor. Its Camera app features two zoom presets: 2x and 5x (the former being a cropped-in version of the primary camera), with a maximum zoom of 20x. For comparison, the Pixel 9, which lacks a dedicated telephoto camera, features a 2x zoom preset in its Camera app with a maximum zoom length of 8x.
That already sounds like a big discrepancy on paper, but it becomes truly apparent once you start comparing camera samples. For this test, I captured a 2x zoom shot (largely just for reference), a 5x shot, and then the maximum zoom for both phones — 20x for the Pixel 10 and 8x for the Pixel 9.
Pixel 10 (2x) Pixel 10 (5x) Pixel 10 (20x) Pixel 9 (2x) Pixel 9 (5x) Pixel 9 (8x)
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